Business Ethics in the News

GOOGLE: Are App Developers On the Hook?

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

Monday, Google removed two Chrome browser extensions (think “apps added to your web browser”) from its store after they were found to be installing unwanted software and redirecting users to affiliate links. The two extensions, “Tweet this Page” and “Send to Feedly,” began as legitimate services, created by individual developers and offered free of charge. In both cases, the original developer sold the extension to a company who then took advantage of existing subscribers to disseminate ads. Send to Feedly’s founder, Amit Agarwal, sold his extension used by 30,000 to an unidentified party. “It was a 4-figure offer for something that had taken an hour to create and I agreed to the deal, says Amit. He has since published a blog post apologizing to existing users, and stated that taking the deal was a bad decision. While many corporations publish apps and extensions, a great deal of these services are made by nonbusiness entities and are offered free of charge. Do independent developers have the same obligations to their users as corporations? Is Amit Agarwal correct in calling his decision a bad one?

Kirk: Anytime you have 30,000 people using a product, you have an obligation to not sell out to someone who might corrupt it or change it in ways that exploit users. Agarwal and others like him clearly want to cash out, and rightfully so. But the glaring problem here is that Agarwal did not identify whom he was dealing with. In this case, it seems like the buyers refused to identify themselves, or at least made it very hard to do so. This alone is enough to say Agarwal should've passed on the deal.

Patrick: First, kudos to Amit for acknowledging his role in the situation. To start, I get where Amit was coming from: “I’m just a guy that made an extension… I don’t have customers.” But the way I see it, when Amit entered the market to sell the extension those existing users became “paying customers;” that is, he was then using them as leverage to get a deal. With that, I think certain obligations emerge; at the least, Amit should’ve announced the change in ownership to existing users.